WikiLeaks soldier to face life sentence

Mar 03, 2011 |

IANS

Tags:

WikiLeaks

Washington: The US military has slapped the 23-year-old soldier, accused of having leaked thousands of secret documents to whistle-blower WikiLeaks, with 22 additional charges including the one that carries capital punishment.

But, according to the ‘Washington Post’, the prosecutors would not seek the execution of private Bradley E. Manning even if he were convicted of ‘aiding the enemy’, one of the 22 new charges slapped against him, officials said.

They said the prosecution's decision of not recommending death penalty means that Manning, if convicted of all charges, would face a maximum punishment of life in prison, forfeiture of salary, a reduction in rank and a dishonourable discharge.

Manning was arrested last May in Iraq, where he was stationed on intelligence duties, and has been kept in solitary confinement in a military jail in the US, pending a mental health review to determine his fitness for a court-martial.

The startling disclosure last year of over 250,000 embassy cables and military documents related to US war in Iraq and Afghanistan caused major embarrassment to the US government.

The additional charges, filed on Tuesday, also include wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet, knowing that it will be accessed by the enemy, and violating army regulations on information security.

"The new charges more accurately reflect the broad scope of the crimes that Manning is accused of committing," Capt. John Haberland, a spokesman for the Military District of Washington, was quoted as saying.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/61020" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-9f8f5ee66ca042efcc9ce3c06c32faff" value="form-9f8f5ee66ca042efcc9ce3c06c32faff" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="86412168" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>